U.S. Mint Releases Annual Report for FY 2016

Note: This post was updated on 2/16/17 at 7:00 p.m. to split bullet point #3 into what are now bullet points #3 and #4.—Editor

The United States Mint has released its annual report for fiscal year 2016. As stated in the introductory letter from Rhett Jeppson, who was principal deputy director of the Mint until his resignation on January 20, 2017, the Mint performed solidly last fiscal year. Jeppson makes particular note of the following:

100% of the more than 16 billion circulating coins ordered by the Federal Reserve Bank were shipped on time.

Demand for silver bullion coins remained strong, surging late in the year. Almost 44 million ounces of gold, silver, and platinum bullion were sold in FY 2016, a slight decrease from the record-setting 49 million ounces sold in FY 2015.

The numismatic product line remained profitable by controlling costs, resulting in earnings of $34.5 million.

Due to the success of each product line, the Mint was able to transfer more than $550 million to the Treasury General Fund this year.

The Financial Department remains strong; for the 24th consecutive year, independent auditors returned an unmodified or “clean” audit on the Mint’s financial statements.

The Mint developed and introduced a five-year strategic plan with three key goals: 1) fostering a safe, flexible, diverse, and engaged workforce; 2) improving enterprise management and governance; and 3) integrating technology into operations and support lines.

The Mint developed and initiated a new program to reimagine the process of numismatic product development from concept to final production and launch.

Customer satisfaction rose, and continues to rise as a result of improvements to the experience of purchasing numismatic and bullion products.

Increased use of the mobile app, faster delivery of products, and updated order tracking have made buying Mint products easier and more convenient.

In addition to circulating, numismatic, commemorative, and bullion coinage, in FY 2016 the Mint produced four Congressional Gold Medals. These commemorated the World War II “Monuments Men,” the 1965 Selma to Montgomery Voting Rights Marches, the U.S. Army 65th Infantry Regiment “Borinqueneers,” and the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe and Pueblo of Laguna Tribe Native American Code Talkers. The Mint also received three 2016 World Coin News awards, including Coin of the Year, for its 2014 National Baseball Hall of Fame commemorative coin.

Circulating Coinage

In FY 2016, the Mint’s shipments of circulating coins to the FRB increased by 1% over the prior year, bringing the 2016 total to 16.3 billion coins. Shipments of pennies and quarters decreased by 2%, while shipments of nickels and dimes increased by 2%. The total value of all shipments last year was $1,104.2 million; this was almost a full percentage point lower than the previous year, thanks to a $40.5 million (6.1%) decrease in quarter-dollar shipments.

(All graphics are from the U.S. Mint 2017 Annual Report)

With respect to seigniorage on circulating coins, the total for FY 2016 was up 7% from FY 2015, bringing the final figure to $578.7 million. The increase in seigniorage was largely attributed to lower metal and production costs. The average spot price for nickel in 2016 decreased 30.9%, while copper decreased 19.6% and zinc decreased 10.4%. Nonetheless, the unit cost for pennies and nickels remained above their face value (at 1.5 cents and 6.32 cents, respectively) for the 11th straight fiscal year.

Precious-Metal Bullion Coinage

In FY 2016, the Mint sold 45,163,000 ounces of bullion, down 4,585,000 ounces (9.2%) from the previous, record-breaking year. Revenue from the bullion program dropped from FY 2015’s $2,126.1 million to $2,085.3 million—a decrease of 1.9%. Net income for FY 2016 was $55.3 million, down 9.3% from $61 million.

Gold Bullion—Gold-bullion sales stayed flat compared to FY 2015, coming in at 1,018 thousand ounces. This includes a 1.1% increase in American Gold Eagle ounces and a 4.3% drop in gold Buffalo ounces. Revenue from gold bullion increased overall by 3.7%, to $1,277.9 million, thanks to a 5.5% increase in AGE revenue. Gold Buffalo revenue, however, dropped by 3.2%. From a net-income perspective, gold bullion decreased $1.2 million (4.6%), thanks to a $0.9 million (4.1%) drop in AGE earnings. Gold Buffalo earnings fell by $0.3 million (6.7%).

Silver Bullion—Silver-bullion sales dropped by 9.4%, to 44,125,000 ounces. American Silver Eagle sales, in particular, fell by 11.3% compared to 2015. Net income from silver bullion decreased by 10.8%, thanks to a $4.1 million drop in ASE earnings—this despite a $0.3 million (37.5%) increase in earnings for America the Beautiful 5-ounce silver bullion coins. The better part of ATB sales came from the year’s first issue, the Shawnee National Forest coin. Shawnee’s sales (525,000 ounces) were the highest for any single ATB 5-ounce coin since the 2011 Glacier National Park and Gettysburg Military Park issues (at 633,500 ounces each). ASE revenue was down by $120.2 million (13.7%) in FY 2016, while ATB revenue was up by $14.1 million (91%). The overall effect was an 11.9% decrease in silver revenue for the year.

Platinum Bullion—According to the annual report, the Mint was able to resume production of platinum bullion in FY 2016 because it finally found a supplier of platinum that could meet the Mint’s delivery requirements. (Prior to 2016, the Mint had not produced an American Eagle Platinum coin since the spring of FY 2014.) The resulting APE coins sold out entirely, with more than 17,000 units being sold within the first 24 hours of their release. The 20,000 ounces of platinum bullion sold generated $22.6 million in revenue, but a net loss of $1.1 million.

Numismatic Coinage

The Mint’s best-selling product in FY 2016 was the annual Proof Set (390,000 units), followed by the 2016 ASE Proof coin (346,000), 2016 Silver Proof Set (267,000), 2015 Proof Set (209,000), and 2016 Uncirculated Set (204,000). Total product sales for the year were 4.2 million units, which represented a significant drop from the 5.4 million units sold in FY 2015. Numismatic revenue for FY 2016 was $413 million; this was a $40.2 million (8.9%) drop from the previous year.

A particular culprit was the 54.3% drop in silver coin product sales, which added up to a $45.3 million decrease in revenue from silver coin products. A new legislative requirement to add 30th-anniversary edge lettering to ASE coins delayed their release, and the effect of the reduced sales was marked: The ASE Proof contributed $25.8 million to the Mint’s revenue in FY 2016—a $10.7 million (29.3%) drop from FY 2015.

Gold and platinum numismatic sales generated 56.7% of revenue last year—that is, $233.7 million, compared to $179.3 million from the other numismatic categories.

Commemorative Coinage

In FY 2016, the Mint rolled out two commemorative programs. The National Park Service 100th Anniversary program had revenue of $13.6 million, yielding surcharges of $1.9 million through September 30. The Mark Twain program had revenue of $11.1 million, resulting in surcharges of $1.6 million through September 30. The surcharges support (respectively) the National Park Foundation and four institutions that honor and preserve the legacy of American author Mark Twain.

Comments

“Customer satisfaction rose, and continues to rise as a result of improvements to the experience of purchasing numismatic and bullion products”, are these alternative facts??? Or maybe just us bloggers are unhappy.

@ Barry, I agree 100%. I would like to see the mint change the design for the AGE to St. Gaudens $10 Indian & ASE to the Peace Dollar. Those classic designs would boost sales and bring some life back to a tired program.

Losing the dollar & first spouse programs is going to take a huge chunk from fiscal 2017. No wonder they are considering a new dollar program. Surprised they can’t make any money selling the ATB quarters. Profit will also drop (or losses increase) in the annual set column with the price dropping on the regular proof and mint set.

I predict the 2017 report is going to be ugly. Maybe cagcrisp will buy 10,000 of those HR gold liberties this year and bail them out!

• The numismatic product line remained profitable by controlling costs, resulting in earnings of $34.5 million. Due to the success of each product line, the Mint was able to transfer more than $550 million to the Treasury General Fund this year.

For me it should be:

• The numismatic product line remained profitable by controlling costs, resulting in earnings of $34.5 million

And then a separate bullet point:

• Due to the success of each product line, the Mint was able to transfer more than $550 million to the Treasury General Fund this year.

The fact is the numismatic product line contributed a small portion of the transferred $550 million.

Seigniorage is the difference between face value and cost of producing circulating coinage. Net income and seigniorage for the Mint’s three business lines are as follows:

…SO why Seigniorage has INCREASED year/year for the past 5 fiscal years actual NET INCOME for numismatic products has DECLINED for the past 4 years

…SO we need to make sure that while circulation coins seigniorage is kicking butt the numismatic side continues on a downward trajectory

Net Income for the numismatic side for the past 5 fiscal years is as follows:

2012 $51.0 million
2013 $66.5 million
2014 $22.7 million
2015 $40.8 million
2016 $8.9 million

Specifically the Gold/Platinum side carried ALL the numismatic items in FY2016. Gold/Platinum Net Income for FY16 was $41.1 million. COMBINED all the remaining numismatic items LOST $32.2 million for total Net Income of ALL numismatic items as $8.9 million…

@cagcrisp – good analysis. But how much money has been wasted on sending return labels and then send back replacements for damaged or poorly packaged goods. Just this year I have had to make 4 returns of partial items from shipments mostly due to poor quality control. The only one making money is the shipping companies Fex Ed Smart post and UPS. Ever since they moved their warehouse, there has been poor quality in packing for shipment. And in the last year plus the amount of silver proof sets and president proof sets have been delivered with air pockets inside the lenses. IE proof production and quality controls thus wasted money

If I had a gold coin from those coins found in the old coffee cans on that private property in California, then yes, I would want the pedigree label for that coin, no doubt, but because some Amish people didn’t trust banks, and stuck away $8k in Morgan’s doesnt make them rare, if anything, it may drop the value of said coins found. I did read there were some stunning rainbows found in the hoard but nothing to do with the label making them more valuable. Was just in a farm house near that road. Ha…

@Louis:
I looked at the 2017 Australia 1 oz $100 Gold Southern Sky Domed Proof. It’s a nice coin and would love to see it in an affordable silver rendition. Do you know if there are there plans to do so?

Off topic – maybe – the 2017 JFK half dollars are to be released soon. Since this year marks the 100th anniversary of JFK’s birth, maybe this would be a fitting and appropriate time to finally end this series. The public hasn’t seen a new JFK half dollar in circulation now for 16 years – that’s as long as the entire Franklin half dollar was minted.. Way past time to retire this series and come up with something INTERESTING and different, or just end production of half dollars altogether. Actually, we could get by well now very well with just two coins – the dime and the quarter. We need a dollar coin, but only if they stop printing $1.00 bills. That would really help on the Mint’s seigniorage , since everything else seems to be on a downward trajectory. And we all need to wake up and realize that the golden age of coin collecting is long gone and gimmick coins like the dollar coins and the FS gold coins are not going to stop the decline in this hobby. Young people aren’t interested in coins – why would they be, seeing what we issue now, as compared top 50+ years ago? The commem silver coins are fast falling prey to the evils that doomed the classic commemorative coins in 1939. It’s just no wonder – at least to me – that coin sales are declining.

I agree with Jerry Diekmann, that we should retire the JFK half dollar. There’s very likely a large part of our population who doesn’t even know who he is or why he’s on a coin. I was speaking to a millennial-aged perdon the other day and they didn’t know who Ronald Reagan was or even OJ Simpson. While not on the same level or in the same category, I’m still shocked “in the past” some view recent history of the last 50-60 years.

I’m all for supporting the phasing in of non-presidential themed coin designs.

I would like to see more fractional gold coins and even USM medals made out of gold and silver.

@cag: with respect to 1/20 oz fractional AGEs or similar formatted, you are exactly right, there is great demand for a gold coin of that size. The US mint could sell all it cares to produce, with a very healthy premium over spot. My other hobby, US Military sniper rifles, affords an opportunity to interact with a lot of individuals in parts of the country. I display a sign offering to accept US Gold and Silver coins as trade for whatever is on my table, which has stimulated much discussion, mostly “what do you have to sell?” In response to the requests I have started displaying assorted silver bars, previously taken in trade, along with duplicates of Gold commeratives, from my collection. I got the most response from a sheet of 1/20 oz Maple Leafs I took on trade. I had to leave them visible for a while in my case, and had extreme interest in them and many offers to purchase. There is a great untapped market for gold fractionals. Also, as you have noted previously, the US Mint could sell all the 10 oz Silver bars it could produce, selling via the web to the public, with much better net profits than traditional proof sets, etc. Right now a 1/20 oz fractional gold US coin would have exceptional demand at around $105 each in my opinion…..

Received my Effigy 5 oz pucks yesterday. Not my favorite design but I still like the 5 oz format. I agree the mint needs to issue more fractional gold and a 10 oz silver format (bars?) would be nice also.

There are those that simply cannot afford the current Mint’s Gold offerings. IF you can afford a 1 oz. Gold coin, you buy a 1 oz. Gold coin. IF you cannot afford a 1 oz. Gold coin and you Still want to purchase a Gold coin you purchase what you can afford. Plain and Simple.

At one time in my life, All I could afford was small denomination Gold. There is no telling how many 1/10 oz. AGE’s, $2.50 Liberty and $5.00 Liberty’s that I have purchased over the years. Now I still purchase $2.50 Liberty and $5.00 Liberty but I haven’t purchased and 1/10 oz. Gold from the Mint with the exception of the Winged Head Liberty dime Gold. Why? IF you can afford it, you buy the best you can afford.

The Mint has been selling Gold bullion since 1986. 30 years’ worth and Each and Every year for 30 years the #1 Selling Gold bullion coin has Either been the 1 oz. OR the 1/10 oz. Never in 30 years has the ¼ oz. AGE or the ½ oz. AGE been higher than #3 on the sales list of Gold bullion coins. IF you can afford a 1 oz. you purchase a 1 oz. IF you cannot afford a 1 oz. you purchase what you can afford.

In 2015 and 2016, considering ALL the 1/10 oz. Golds the US Mint has sold, the Average sales of 1/10 oz. Gold coins has been a Little over 1,000,000 units/year.

The Mint sells 1/10 oz. Gold bullion coins for cost +9% to AP’s and with Current Gold at ~ $1,241.00 the Mint Would be selling 1/10 oz. Proof AGE’s at $175.00 or at a 41% premium.

…SO…Anyway you look at it, Sales of 1/10 oz. US Mint is a Minimum of $135,000,000 per year for the past two years.

…SO…IF you can sell 1,000,000 units of Gold 1/10 oz. per year, how many units of Gold 1/20 oz. Gold could you possibly sell?

Is there a market for 1/20 oz. Gold coins?

…Well…Between 1849-1889 the US Mint produced 19.5+ million $1.00 Gold coins that were Either 13mm or 15mm in diameter but All had .0483 in Gold …SO…All less than 1/20 oz. Gold.

Since 1986 the US Mint has produced ~ 16.7 million 1/10 oz. Gold in either bullion or proof coins.
…SO… There is MORE US Gold coins produced with LESS than 1/20 oz. of Gold than there have been produced with 1/10 oz. Gold.

…SO…There could be a 1,000,000+ US 1/20 oz. Gold coins sold per year and put a price tag of $100 on that and you could be looking at $100 million in revenue per year.

…SO…Give the customer what they want to Buy, sell to the customer that Wants to buy, sell to the customer when They want to buy and Quit playing class warfare with unreasonable household limits that selects one group over another group…

I don’t know about any pent up demand or untapped market. I have never personally heard any clamoring for tiny coins. What I do know is that if you can not afford to purchase a 1/10th at $135, you certainly can not afford a 1/20th at $105 (half the gold at 80% of the price). Wait another pay period and buy the tenth. Just another example of the financially ignorant poor staying poor – while the rich get richer…talk about class warfare at the Mint.

I have a few gold bars which weigh one grain. Melt value $2.57 each. That is 1/480 of a troy oz. Better not sneeze as they literally will blow away. Hate those silly things. Why not sell those stupid floating gold flakes in water in a special vial stamped with a Treasury seal?

Earthling, bad memories. Goldschlagger = Jägermeister in my mind. Cheap novelty drinks that should be banned for anyone over the age of 25.

So Krates, don’t be so harsh. Rounding out Apmex prices for maple leafs the 1/10 is $140 and the 1/20 is $90. As cagcrisp pointed out people buy what they can afford. Anyone can easily make a case for not buying the 1/10 ounce pieces and waiting another paycheck or more to buy something heavier. $50 is a lot of money to a lot of people.

You have to figure a good percentage of those buying the 1/10 ounce pieces will also buy the 1/20 ounce pieces.

I would not be a buyer of the small coins, just too tiny. Part of the allure of gold is holding something that is precious, or something you haven’t owned before. Eventually one outgrows the small coins and becomes accustomed to the larger 1 oz, or whatever their affordability level is. It may be that the USM believes that the smaller coins are gimmicky, and Americans can afford to play in gold with what the USM has to offer if the buyer chooses.

You are right that anyone can easily make a case for not buying the 1/10 ounce pieces and waiting another paycheck or more to buy something heavier . I make this argument all the time to anyone who has the sense to listen. However for someone who has been bitten with the gold bug and doesn’t have the impulse control to wait till she’s got $1250, the 1/10th is a reasonable compromise. In your example the smaller coin is 30% more per ounce.

Again, if you can’t even afford 1/10th oz of gold, then you definitely can’t afford to pay $1900/oz for bullion!

Sorry, above should read $1800/oz bullion and “bitten by the gold bug ”

It’s kinda like how most poor folks don’t have an understanding of unit pricing at the supermarket. (To be fair most people including store employees don’t get it). The only way to compare the same food or drink (or toilet paper) in multiple package sizes is to calculate the unit cost. It is not uncommon to see a smaller sized product on sale for a better UNIT price than a larger one.

Here’s my idea: Putting old coins in circulation might work but how about dropping an old coin in an area that kids are hanging out, like a school or an arcade (they still uses quarters). I found a Winged Head Liberty dime at my elementary school play ground in the mid-80s that I still own today (and yes that is what started my collection).

After thinking about Cagcrisp’s post on the MS69 and MS70 distribution of the Robinson and NPS commemoratives, I cam to the conclusion that the Mint’s increase in quality (or the TPGers lax standards) are actually hurting sales. If there are 200 people out there trying to put together a MS70 collection and the mint/tpgs only have a 10% MS70 turnout, then sales have to reach 2000 coins to satisfy this portion of the customer base. If the percentage jumps to 50%, then sales would drop to 400, or 1600 less coins needed.

I imagine this is only a small portion of the market and I am not arguing that the demographic headwinds are not a bigger factor, but I just found it somewhat perverse that higher quality could result in lower sales.

To address the 1/20 oz coin product need in the market, the real interest is from the survivalist community, or those concerned fiat currency will become useless , not bullion buyers or collectors. Those types of buyers will gladly pay a premium above spot for what they consider “real money.” To further the discussion, I have a fellow military collector who was interested in converting his fiat currency into real money, so I showed him where and how I acquire bullion, and where I was getting best deals/prompt discrete shipping. My next visit with him, he was pleased with his results in conversion thus far, but said he did not want to have to trade an ounce of gold for a tank of gas, so I discussed feactionals, next encounter he reported acquisition of 2 mint tubes of 1/10 gold Eagles, and vented to me that he wished the US Mint produced gold in even smaller sizes. My point in posting this here is that there will be a strong market for 1/20 oz fractionals from the Mint, in hopes someone from the Mint will notice. Sadly I hold little hope for the Mint seeing a marketing opportunity, much less a product the FED may not want in the market place to compete with Fiat currency. As the Rocket Scientests at work say “Hope is not a Management Tool” Harry

@data dave, your comment is valid on quality of Modern Gold Comms, I was a collector of that series from the US mint, and noticed a big jump in gold coin mint quality starting in 2008, especially from West Point. More pronounce detail from better flow during striking, flatter fields, and very uniform centering, the only recent poor products was the finning on the Mercury tribute coins. I suspect the use of circulation quality machinery used to produce the Mercury, and a somewhat weak strike standing Liberty was the issue. Harry

I find it much easier to think in terms of grams vs oz concerning fractional gold. Valcambi and Sunshine et al produce 1 gram bars and wafers and the .5 gram mini roos from Perth are nice. Mini roos have a different design each year although they’re almost microscopic and have a very large premium. The premiums for gram bars are rather high but not nearly as much as the Indian Princess Head gold dollars which are about 1.37 grams. I don’t think people are buying these coins primarily for the gold content. I hope not.

A 1 gram bar sells for about $50 so the premium is not that bad. It’s still pretty high but it’s a lot more reasonable.

I don’t collect small gold coins but as prices rise I do see an increased need to produce smaller affordable gold products. I have a few .5 gram bars that were gifts, if they cost more at the time of purchase they might not have been give to me.

If I had a tiny gold flake for each time I heard the “1 oz of gold for a gallon of gas hypothetical”, I could make my own bottle of shlagger. The guy in Harry B.’s anecdote spent over $1000 extra for this imaginary Walking Dead fantasy. He would have been better advised to buy one ounce in 1/10ths and the rest Roosevelt dimes. With all the extra premium he could have had 700 dimes ready to trade for loaves of bread when the SHTF.

Silver coins have served this purpose just fine for millennia. An ounce of silver will always be equivalent to 1/20 – 1/80 ounce of gold.

Would you take a gold or silver dollar and split it into 1/100ths? Of course not, we use larger copper (cheaper metal) coins to serve this purpose. It sure ain’t rocket science.

Yes! Coins with the Cosmos! 50th anniversary coming up for the moon landing, July 20th 1969-2019. Twelve astronauts landed on the moon…one coin a month in order of each.
But what I’d like to see the most is a gold coin with our solar system.
AND NO CRAPPY ARTWORK.
Put some effort into a BEAUTIFUL DESIGN THAT’S SCULPTED!!!!
——–>>> Not this “phony-looking” laser-carved junk!!!<———-
C'mon mint…..make a BEAUTIFUL coin 🙂

I don’t think changing the design of the American Silver Eagle will up the sales. 2015 sold 47 million and 2016 was over 37 million. I believe the lower sales for 2016 Silver Eagles was the uncertainty of silver spot prices.
I would NOT like to see a design change. I am ok with an additional series starting, maybe a different design each year. But leave the ASE alone! Just my opinion!

jhawk92, They need your traffic there, just click there when he posts.

Louis, What a magical and tragic time it was. JFK said to a brand new generation of excited people looking into a brand new and promising future that “we are going to the moon”. Those first several years into that generation would forever be burned into our memories as a moment in time that we were brand new. The exuberance made us unstoppable, and yes, we went to the moon! I can’t think of a better choice of subjects than our that of our space program.

1958 Chevrolet Bel Air wants a 225th anniversary set of 1792 modern re-issues in original denominations and compositions. I’d like to see that. The gold 100th anniversary designs would be a nice warmup to a 225th anniversary set. Probably too late to pass legislation and envision all the work and packaging at this point.

The Mint’s priorities and interests sen to be elsewhere. Personally I like the scope this idea stretching back to the Mint’s origins.

As for J. Miller’s idea of Cosmos coins, I like it but wonder how they’d look in just the base metal. The planets have colors. But colorized coins don’t sit well with many among the MNB family. Subtle colorizing would be interesting but nothing that approaches the look and feel of cloisonné (inlaid enamel work). Red for Mars, blue and green for Earth, etc. Others might feel if one is going to colorize then go all the way.

I’m looking for beautiful coins too, and there are hits and misses imho. I’m fond of commemoratives but lately these last three or four designs belong on medals not our currency. This is just me, being purely subjective here.

That pink gold coin in the future for breast cancer awareness will interesting to see how the color works with that. I’m imagining that the pink on that coin would be how I’d like to see colors on Cosmos coins of our planets and sun.

Fun to imagine.

I tried to order directly from the Austrian Mint for the Archangels Coins series and was spanked by new laws. I think I can only order them via APMEX. The Michael Archangel coin has blue on sliver base and looked very nice in the numismatic magazine.

I think some commemoratives of our space program is a very admirable subject. I’d buy them for sure…well, let me see the designs first, but I’m interested and supportive of the concept. I can’t believe what our space probes and telescopes have been able to beam back to us! It boggles my mind!

Yes I will click over there when it posts. I just asked for a heads-up on when it is.

@bobo-

In a slightly earlier part of my life, I was collecting space-themed stamps from the old Soviet Union/USSR. There some very cool designs and they aren’t too expensive, in the grand scheme of things, even in M-NH status.

On a different note, where do people get the new rolls of pennies, AtB quarters, etc? I’ve been poking around banks in my area (Denver) and they all seem to carry just “circulated” coins wrapped up. I see on the bay that there are 50-roll penny boxes direct from the Fed Reserve as well is single rolls for sale. I’d prefer to get a couple of rolls at/near FV, but can’t seem to find any here. Any help would be appreciated.

Louis, Thanks. It’s been a long wait for the Texas Missions. You can guess I’m hoping for an exceptional coin.

I was also surprised at how nice the Effigy Mounds deign looked on my most recent “S” quarter roll acquisition. I had decided that I should put the brakes on the 5 oz. coins and focus on something with a larger demand base, but I may begin to have second thoughts about that, at least for the bullion issues. Keep up the good work.

@jayhawk & Barry..I too have tried at our only 2 local banks to get rolls with no luck but interestingly I belong to a pool league where the bars provide rolls of quarters for the tables…the last 2 weeks we have gotten uncirculated rolls of quarters dated 1999….2001…2013 & 2015…This is a very small town so the many bars must be getting them from the only 2 banks…Thursday is league night and I will ask where they get them from…

@Jayhawk & Barry I have dealt with the same bank for over 23 years. I have a business account, personal account and credit card through that bank. I too could not get any either rolls or box from my bank. I even write a letter to the general manager (last week) with my complaint. I use to get a box from that bank several years ago.
Most of the new roll boxes are coming from Loomis or Brink or some from of distributor. And those distributors deal straight with stores. I assume they have a charge for supplying those stores with coins. My best guess is that the people selling boxes on Bay work in one of those distributor’s. In the last several years I have had to buy boxes on bay. I see the price of 2017-P’s are starting to drop on bay. One seller stated he had 23 boxes left.
If I should not hear from the branch manager I will write the CEO of that bank, for what ever that is worth.

I am a bit late to the fractional gold discussion, but as someone on the outside looking in in terms of gold, is there not a way to make a coin out of a gold alloy, perhaps with 1/50 or 1/100 ounce of gold, but around the size of a quarter? Personally, I’m not the type of person to fork over $1,300 for one coin, and the 1/10 oz. coins are just too small and expensive for their size to garner my interest. I would imagine an alloy coin with a smaller and affordable amount of gold would be an interesting and affordable way to get people into both the coins and gold investments.

@Jeff- I could go for a 10k or 14k gold coin / medallion to increase the size. A 1/10 ounce @ 24k is too small for me also. Those lower purities should be available as jewelry is often made from it. Maybe someone will take the chance and make something different.

@ Jeff Wheat/Barry – There are several world gold coins made in lower purities and larger diameters relative to their Actual Gold Weight. The Franklin Mint produced several beautiful Bahamas legal tender commems in all different purities including .500 (12K), .585 (14K), .750 (18K), etc.